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Phil Skoglund was elected today as the new president of Bowls Manawatu. In the annual general meeting held at the Palmerston North Bowling Clubrooms, Phil took over the reigns from Tony Jensen, the departing president. Anthony Woodley from Ashurst and Lyn Elphick from Takaro were elected vice-presidents. Also elected on the board were Norah Bacon, Noeleen Elston, Sharon Sims, Terry Puklowski, Vern Sixtus and Stewart McGrail. A special presentation was made to the former secretary, Irene Reilly for her contribution to Bowls Manawatu.

Palmerston North Bowling Club wishes the new Executive and President the best of the luck for the new season.

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This is just a reminder that the National Bowls Awards are fast approaching.

Nominations will close on 16 July 2012 for the categories of: Centre of the Year
Club of the Year
Player of the Year
Coach of the Year
Administrator of the Year
Official of the Year
Young Player of the Year
Green Keeper of the Year
Media Award
Volunteer of the Year

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“Three bowling clubs have called a special general meeting to try to avoid a leadership crisis in the sport in Manawatu.

The prime movers have been Johnston Park (Feilding), Takaro and Palmerston North. They have compelled Bowls Manawatu, under its constitution, to stage the meeting at the Palmerston North Bowling Club on Sunday with the same agenda as the failed special meeting on May 27.

That fell over because there were insufficient club delegates to even muster a quorum. Only 14 of the potential 38 club delegates attended, six short of a quorum.

After most clubs ignored that meeting, called to change the structure of the ruling body and to get away from the antiquated delegate system, president Tony Jensen announced he had had enough of the apathy in bowls and would be resigning.

Despite numerous pleas from bowlers for him to stay, even from Bowls New Zealand, Jensen was adamant yesterday that he would still be quitting after the annual meeting next month.

“My position is unchanged, and will remain unchanged,” he said.

“I have had a lot of comment from Joe Soap bowler.”

Jensen is now looking forward to playing bowls instead of taking care of everyone else. His departure is likely to snowball with many other executive members vowing to follow him.

The three clubs behind Sunday’s meeting are concerned that the centre could be left leaderless and decided to call the meeting because a club tournament programme meeting was being held a half hour later. Surely club delegates will front up for that.

As one bowler said, under the current constitution, “a dipstick” could be nominated and elected.

For yonks, an informant has warned me that bowlers are a breed of their own.

And after the apathetic snub of a special meeting called by Bowls Manawatu last Sunday, who can argue?

It seems the ever-ageing bowlers go into winter hibernation.

In the past year or so, a fairly progressive regime under president Tony Jensen has been in power.

The future in almost every sport is to install independent executive members who are not there solely in their clubs’ interests. For instance, should Northern have the five best people, or others have specialist qualities, then bring them on.

But when half the Manawatu clubs didn’t bother to send a soul to the Sunday meeting, then we don’t even know if they care, or if their secretaries are asleep. What else do bowlers do on off-season Sundays?

By my count, of the 14 delegates who did front, eight were already members of the executive.

The executive had drafted the remit to restructure themselves, so should they have been voting on it?

Anyway, the meeting was aborted and bowls will be stuck with its antiquated system of electing its executive. With the liberals marching out the door, get set for another enlightened gerontocracy.

At an annual meeting a few years ago, two codgers arrived to man the bar, only to find themselves press-ganged on to the executive.

In the cool light of the next day, they resigned when they realised what they’d done.

Bowls Manawatu’s executive is on the verge of disintegration with president Tony Jensen signalling he has had enough.

Jensen said he will be pulling the plug come the annual meeting in July and at least three others are expected to follow him.

Everything boiled over at the Palmerston North Bowling Club on Sunday when eight of the centre’s 16 clubs failed to turn up to a Bowls Manawatu special general meeting.

Jensen said he felt “personally insulted” because the clubs had had plenty of notice about the meeting and had been emailed reminders on Friday. He interpreted it as a vote of no-confidence from the clubs.

“They can do it without me,” Jensen said. “Apathy is the only word to describe it.”

He had taken over as president in November after the death of Maggie May and by the annual meeting will have served two years on the executive.

The special meeting was convened to make a change so members of the executive could be appointed or elected on merit rather than having to be club delegates, effectively to remove roadblocks.

“This was the first of the changes we needed to take the game forward, and it drew a blank,” Jensen said.

“It all revolved around one thing. It was precluding us from getting the best people involved.

“You try to do good for the game but if the game doesn’t want to go with you, you can’t do anything.”

“It is not an easy job being Bowls New Zealand chief executive Kerry Clarke, a man who is trying to protect the future of the game.

Clark is leading a partnership and participation roadshow around the country to try to address some of the sport’s problems with declining numbers in player memberships, volunteers and revenues, a trend in most areas.

Clark was in Palmerston North for the Manawatu leg of the tour yesterday, and said there were a number of people in the bowls community “hoping like hell” for a return to the good old days, but it was not going to happen.

He wanted to arrest the decline in the number of traditional bowlers bowling, which had been going on for a while now.